New record for Kurdish oil prospect

OSLO, Norway, July 23 (UPI) -- Oil flowed from a well in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq at a rate of 25,000 barrels per day, a site record for energy company DNO International.

Norway's DNO said it was able to reach a record rate of 25,000 bpd from one of its wells at the Tawke field in the semiautonomous Kurdish north. A Tawke well tested previously at a rate of 8,000 bpd.

DNO has a majority stake in the Tawke field in the Kurdish region of Iraq alongside Turkish energy company Genel Energy and the Kurdistan Regional Government. DNO said it plans to at least one more well in the region this year.

"We are pleased with the exceptional results [so far]," DNO Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani said in a statement Monday.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its July monthly market report Iraq, as a whole, produced nearly 3 million barrels of oil per day.

The central and Kurdish governments are at odds over who controls what in the national oil sector.

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